Driving By Angels
by Verdot
Summary: [Mild DoC spoilers] Lucrecia. What contributes to a woman joining the Jenova Project?


I've always wanted to write a Lucrecia story that didn't make her the victim but didn't turn her into a complete witch either. Funnily enough, with the advent of Dirge of Cerberus and the fact that Vincent's father was a scientist... well, my brain came up with this. I figure that everyone involved with the Jenova Project had crazy parents, so please forgive my creative liberties with Lu's mother.

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Lucrecia Crescent had always been drawn to dangerous things. At the age of six she carted home a scorpion, and at the age of seven she managed to charm a rattlesnake into a basket. But living on the little edge of a desert tended to reveal such interesting things.

In short, Lucrecia Crescent drove her mother mad. Quite literally, in fact.

She learned later that it wasn't her constant questioning that actually drove Amelia Crescent mad. Her mother was a simple insomniac most of her life, but eventually something switched and she started having delusions. It might have had something to do with her father, but she didn't remember him enough to worry about that. In fact, even as a child, she was almost more curious about her mother's madness than concerned.

"_An angel has descended... a beautiful angel... my pretty daughter, let's go find her..."_

Of course, Amelia never saw her angel. When Lucrecia was fourteen, her mother committed suicide by radiative overdose. She always used to say there were voices coming from the reactor...

Lucrecia, unlike most pretty little girls, decided that science was a far better place for the likes of her. Questioning, always questioning. Teachers liked Lucrecia. She was always raising her hand, asking questions, sometimes answering once she'd finally known. Still carting in dangerous specimens, scaring her great aunt who had taken her in.

Maybe that was why she was sent to University early. Great Aunt was a rather supersitious woman, after all, and housing a teenaged daughter of a dead woman was bad luck.

In University, Lucrecia discovered she was beautiful.

She was usually one of the few women in her classes, and she figured that the stares were because of that fact. But it took a stammering geek with ill fitting glasses to tell her the truth. That she was in fact something rather pleasant to look at.

This amused her.

With enough questions, she figured out that with this, she could lead men into different directions. She could find out... more. They were more willing to divulge what they really thought after a quickie between Biology 345 and Cell Theory 251. She became a psychologist of sorts then. Living things had so many aspects to them.

Then she met Grimoire.

He was the type of man that would have been strikingly handsome if he could shake the academic out of his system. Dark hair, dark eyes, and a very silly hat. He'd come to the Unversity to use students for the less brilliant aspects of his work; number crunching, labelling, and cataloging. Unlike most academic scientists, he didn't immediately go to the grad students.

He appeared in her ten thirty am biology class wearing a pith helmet and a brown leather jacket, which indicated he travelled a lot. And couldn't pick out his wardrobe. Nor, his assistants, as he has no rhyme or reason why he chose the ones he did.

Including her. She didn't even have a hand raised, had actually been trying to draw attention away from herself for once. Something was distinctly unsettling about the man.

It proved to be fascinating work for Lucrecia, and especially considering that Grimoire took time to talk to all those that worked for him. He was studying the very building blocks of life, hoping that maybe they would cure diseases some day.

Those were idealistic times.

_He paused over the notebook she was doodling in. "Lucrecia, what are you doing?"_

"_I'm just remembering something when I was a kid. Do you believe in angels, Grim?"_

He had always insisted they address him casually.

_He tapped a finger to his chin. "Well, certainly. In a sense."_

It was very easy for her to see where she'd strayed with that. He was acting like a father but she didn't want a father.

She only really had a problem the one day, which, for the sake of being taken seriously, she suppressed. Of course, all the other boys didn't matter here. Because talking with Grim was far better than the fumbling and writhing they provided.

"_Lu, you should come over for dinner sometime, I think Lisa would really like you."_

_She had never heard him speak of any other women. "Who's Lisa?"_

"_Oh, I'm sorry, that's my wife. She's been on my case for not feeding my assistants, so I figured you would be a good one to test out. She'd probably want to adopt you."_

"_So no children?" _

"_Two, actually. My son is around your age, a bit younger. I could only dream of him starting college as soon as you did. I'm afraid my daughter is even less interested in school."_

"_That sounds... terrible. I wouldn't tolerate that sort of behavior." He chuckled._

"_They're just kids."_

And she was around his _son's_ age. No wonder he acted like a father. But Lucrecia didn't want or have need for a father. She wanted a genius, quite simply. Dumb men were good for basic questions, but a genius... she could ask all sorts of things. And maybe if a genius made love to her, she would absorb their knowledge, and she would finally feel at peace.

Maybe they would lead her to angels.

Her concentration into her work instead of the dissappointment with Grim is what made the accident that much more problematic. Because she'd gotten in the way, her own blind ambition fixing her to her spot. They'd only just begun animal testing... and something had _mutated_. It ran amok and she didn't remember much...

Hands. The sensation of being carried. Blood. Darkness.

She woke up in a hospital bed with minor injuries. Another dangerous thing, only this time it had taken something from her. No angels. Only demons.

But she didn't cry over him, death was final, even for Grim. Because another scientist was pulling her further from students her own age. Shinra, Shinra... it was calling like a chant. A brilliant man, in a way that was almost accidental; that was Gast. His assistant was far more interesting.

Toshiro Hojo. If she knew then what she knew now, she would have never gotten involved with him either.

Marry the genius, her will told her. So she did. They were going to find angels, she knew it this time. She loved working beside him, even if sometimes he forgot her name, seemingly. Even if the long hours in the lab usually left him exhausted and not ready for her to absorb his genius.

It had been a particularly dry period when Vincent came into the picture. Vincent Grimoire Valentine. He was softer looking than his father; obviously he took more after his mother. He lacked his father's countenance, his brand of intelligence... like a bad copy.

But he had called her an angel once, and she could understand parts of Grimoire in him. She was absorbing his DNA through her skin, and she didn't care what other names he muttered in his sleep when in waking he only spoke of her.

She craved the scientist while she was with Vincent, just has he was most likely craving someone else. And it was clear there was a ravenous danger behind those blue eyes, the eyes the reminded her it was not Grimoire... but Lucrecia Crescent had always liked dangerous things. Lucrecia Hojo shouldn't be any different.

Then, her genius figured out how to find her an angel. Using Gast's uncanny discovery, he proposed they simply make her angel. She would birth a celestial being.

It was like euphoria. The son got more possessive with her, but she'd heard him shout at Ifalna... and she was tiring of his human scented demon kind. She hated him for his mismatched resemblence, for passing on no new knowledge to her. But her Genius was needing her around more and her hunger could be sated by his clinical touch.

It exploded into color and light when she died. At least, she thought she had. All she knew was that there had been fighting, and someone had split Vincent's lip open, she could smell the blood. Later, there was a gunshot, and the bad copy haunted her no further. Just her and her Genius and their angel child...

"_Sephira. What is that about, Grim?"_

"_We deal in life, Lu. And this is the Tree of life."_

...she heard her mother's voice, when it all went black. Chanting and humming like the messenger of her madness. Because Lucrecia had been the one to drive her mad after all.

She just didn't know for what yet.


End file.
